After finally beating Big B with Korgath i have decided to park him again for some time. One reason behind this is that my old Compagnon @Vynn asked me if we want to start another Totemic Druid together after Vyzz got stuck in Avernus once he realized that without Violet Potion his chances to hit Big B are pretty suboptimal. @Vynn tried the Magic Resistance + Harm Combo but failed. The rest was bitter as he ran out of invisibility potions before meeting his doom. Vyzz has to be revenged! We are eager to see how level 10 spirits will wrac havoc upon the Sword Coast when pushing XP using the petrifying trick right at the start. This should be funny!
I mis-clicked on the conversation with Mulahey though and had to use the cloak repeatedly to charm his supporting army
Does Algernon's Cloak let you charm critters multiple times per day? In my install, it's limited to a single use per day.
The Nymph Cloak has multiple charges, but it's not available until you reach Baldur's Gate.
@Harpagornis: Why would invisibility potions be useful in the fight with Big B? He should be able to see through invisibility; one of his items gives him that ability. Is it just there to keep off the Abishais?
There are mainly two reasons for invisibility when fighting Big B @semiticgod:
1. You will negate the -4 hit penalty from Improved Invisibilty (Arrows of Dispelling did not work!) 2. You will avoid the constant teleporting of the Demons - which will be VERY annoying later on
At the start i tend to use Sandthief Ring charges - its slower but the number of demons is not high enough to surround you. Later on - if you keep staying too long - they will teleport around you blocking any escape path. They will still scatter once invisibility procs but if you get unlucky and Big B is near you might suffer a lot of damage. And never forget: Cornugons can stun on hit. I died to this crap more than one time.
But you are right: Invisibilty will not protect you from Big B and also not from Erinyes Archers so i tend to use anti-missile equipment to minmize incoming damage. The numbers of Erinyes will differ in each battle: If you get lucky there will only be one of them - if everything turns out badly up to four of them will keep shooting. You might try to kill them but they are very slippery and will go invisible whenever you attack them. Bad girls!
Does Algernon's Cloak let you charm critters multiple times per day?
@semiticgod no. However, if attempting to charm from invisible you can retreat after the attempt without the enemy being alerted. Also resting is always successful in Mulahey's cave, so there's no need to even use invisibility before resting to try another charm.
After passing invisibly through the Cloakwood, Freda took no chances at the Mine entrance - Drasus & co being charmed one by one and fed to enemies. She got her final BG1 level there. Inside she continued to play safe by sneaking down to the bottom level and charming the guard. The battle horrors were pulled back by the guard and blinded before being meleed. Davaeorn was then quickly beaten up by the charmed guard. Unfortunately Freda didn't pick up Davaeorn's equipment before resting to heal trap damage and it disappeared costing her a pretty penny.
Flooding the mine got Freda to reputation 20 and she did some shopping and picked up the tome from Durlag's before heading on to Baldur's Gate. Everything went pretty smoothly with encounters there - summoned monsters and charming from invisible being favorite tactics - except that Lothander teleported away just before being killed. She found yet another web scroll on a ghast in Ramazith's Tower - and failed once more to learn it, but after eventually succumbing to paying for a scroll from Sorcerous Sundries she learned it at the 6th or 7th attempt.
With funds being a bit short I did some encounters mainly for the loot, e.g. Sunin (summons) and Iron Throne (charm from invisible - the Shennaras losing out to Diyab and his skeleton warrior). It was a bit of a pain dealing with inventory management, but eventually the job was done.
A potion of magic blocking ensured Freda survived the welcoming committee back at Candlekeep. She left the Iron Throne leaders alone, but looted the tombs. The strength tome is particularly welcome as dualling to a fighter doesn't give you exceptional strength. After bypassing the dopplegangers she tried charming one of Prat's gang, but failed and was jumped on by several phase spiders - being poisoned there required her to use a green scroll as resting wasn't an option. She took advantage of that to kill the other spiders before trying charms again. Six or seven of those all failed and as resting is difficult there she just gave up at that point and left.
Eklun, the Human Totemic Druid started his adventure but - how can we formulate this one - we are running into some kind of "problem" at the start:
When walking through the woods there are always some kind of "bandits" ambushing us. The heavy armored Warriors are not the problem - even not the spellcaster. But the Archer is! He fires a volley of four Ice Arrows before we can get out of range - GG!
Well at least that should happen! No? You already may have noticed that we described the cutscene with Gorion and Sarevok - at least parts of it. Holy cow, how can a level 1 character survive four consecutive hits like this without any scratch? Hidden Stone Skin and Protection from Elements?
Anyway: The game should have ended here. Sarevok has won! Or was it Irenicus? Or Melissan? Who knows!
Back in Baldur's Gate, dispelling arrows made Slythe vulnerable to summons. Krystin packed a lot of area damage, but a couple of lots of summons and a charmed opponent eventually wore her down.
At the palace there were more charmed and summoned creatures to start the fight. That nearly ended badly at the start though when the assassin targeted Freda with a backstab. However, at only 70 HPs that was quite low damage and after that Freda was pretty successful at staying out of the sights of the mage while dispelling the dopplegangers and topping up summons. Liia stayed invisible throughout so Freda wasn't called upon to renew that.
After spending the remainder of her funds Freda worked through the maze with the help of some summons against the skeleton warriors. Unfortunately Rahvin proved resistant to numerous charm attempts and Freda eventually gave up on getting his exploding arrows.
In the temple, Sarevok was dumped in the corner with the others while Freda dealt with Angelo herself (to avoid the danger of summons being confused or scared) using potions of magic protection.
Semaj died with the last blast from Freda's first Necklace and Tazok and Diarmid went down to the second. It took a number of shots (with a non-proficient bow), but Sarevok was finally dispelled and it didn't take too many more charges of the monster wand to finish him off then.
By the way in relation to surplus XP transferring, here's Freda's record at the start of SoD.
I'm afraid I don't know why that XP appears not to show up for some people ...
What are the odds of actually getting through the dungeon this time ?
If memory serves, the cutscene was updated in BGEE's initial release, way before LoB was introduced, so it was assuming normal creature stats. We did have to adjust a couple of SoD cutscenes for LoB mode, though, as there were discrepancies between visual action and HP count, e.g. the hostiles wouldn't die in the bridge scene in Ch.11 and remained afterwards . In case of Gorion scene, player is protected by minhp1 effect, so LoB didn't break anything.
PS I kinda agree it may look funny for a level 1 character to take several magic arrows in cutscene and die to a single shot in actual game... But then LoB itself isn't quite the normal mode per DnD rules.
The opening cutscene is actually adjusted for LoB mode. In standard, 3 shots are fired (I count them carefully as once they've gone it's safe to exit the cutscene - if you exit earlier there's a chance an arrow fired during the cutscene will continue into the main view and one-shot your character)! In LoB the APR bonus means that 4 shots are fired.
Dazbog the Beastmaster reached the 7th level after visiting Mutamin's Garden (killing Algernon dropped reputation to 7, that was enough to retain the Ranger status). On Mutamin Dazbog found the Manual of Bodily Health.
A charmed basilisk helped to deal with Kirian's band of adventurers from Waterdeep, while the pseudo dragon familiar's regeneration ability turned to be especially useful.
Dazbog hasn't found anything good other than the Constitution tome, so right now he will attempt to raid the Sword Coast for items (bows, staves, studded armor).
Nice to see you are doing fine so far @JuliusBorisov - keep on going!
Eklun in the meanwhile is rolling like a thunder through the Sword Coast:
- Killed Shoal and did some minor quests in Beregost to reach level 4 - Grabbed Algernons Cloak and gold heavy stuff like Drizzts Items and Ring of Wizardry - Bought 24 Scrolls of "Stone to Flesh" and charmed Talanthyr for Invisibility - Got luck to charm the solo Lesser Basilisk out if invisibility on first try - Protected Eklun with PfP and started the "Experification" on the southern Greater Basilisk - Ten minutes later Eklun reached level 10 (fleshing his pet once!) - Killed Dushai outside of the village for Ring of Free Action - Ued some gold to get back to reputation 10 and did all relevant quest to reach 20 - Killed Meilum for Gauntlets of Weapon Mastery (stunlocked!) - Killed Neira for Eyes of Truth Helm (stunlocked!) - Killed the thievish Ogre for anti-missile belt (stunlocked!) - Bought Displacer Cloak, Greenstone Amulet and Sandthief Ring in Ulghoth´s Beard - Grabbed also the Ring of Fire Protection and Ankheg Armor earlier - Used Invisibility to get the Tome of Wisdom in Durlags Tower unnoticed
Thanks to XP pushing the level 10 Spirit Wolves are stunlocking everything (Doom!) while being untouchable for most enemies. With the most relevant items already aquired we will start the Main Quest Line soon! Time to get out with the real doggies!
In SoD Freda immediately took a level earned with excess XP from BGEE. She then showed herself briefly to the first group of enemies to get them to move away from guarding Porios' door and this time there was no mistake in persuading Porios to surrender. A PfU scroll allowed her to move past various groups of undead and invisibility took her through to the mercenaries guarding the gate controls - they were persuaded to leave their posts. Without showing herself to Korlasz, she charmed and drew away a couple of the guards. The intention was to make them invisible and put them in the gate control room, but as soon as they were made invisible the guards just disappeared entirely and didn't even respond to group commands. After trying several times Freda sent one into the next room where the elite mercenaries were - they quickly killed it, but that also triggered their flocking behavior so they all grouped round Freda despite never having seen her or a genuine party member.
Using another PfU scroll, Freda dragged them back to the level exit and there successfully charmed the mage before going upstairs. She went invisible again and came back down and ran back to the gate control room to see if the mercenaries would follow - which they did. Changing tactics, she started using wand scorchers to damage the mercenaries while running away. An absorb health from a blackguard hit her for 64 damage, but there wasn't much else and she used a potion of regeneration to fix that.
Once the enemies were mainly dead Freda lured the remaining few into the gate control room and summoned some monsters to help finish them off. That appeared to have gone well, but despite that fight being a long way from the nearest undead group they had apparently heard the commotion and come to investigate - and brought all their undead friends from further back in the dungeon as well. Her PfU was still operating when they arrived, but either she was dispelled or it ran out moments later as she came under attack - a quick potion of invisibility put most of the attackers off while she renewed the PfU.
Back in Corlasz' room, she saw that all the mercenaries except Korlasz were now hostile, so summoning some help to start a fight was not really an option any longer. She used a PfM scroll with the idea that she would buff up with potions, but as soon as she used that it triggered an assault from all the undead and mercenaries. She used a potion of invisibility to get out of the room and dodged the incoming undead hordes to try to drag them as far away as possible before using her last PfU scroll. Coming back to Korlasz' room most of the undead were gone, so Freda potioned up while the mercenaries grouped round her. A couple of scorchers along with a dispelling arrow to set her up for a scimitar attack was sufficient for Korlasz to surrender.
Just to add insult to injury when Freda reported back to Fanegonorom he said he was rewarding her with an item, but didn't actually do so (and I wanted that +2 shield).
Looks like you have finally found your class @Grond0 - may luck be on your side in the coming challenges!
Any clue why Freda started SoD with so many XP? My chars - except for Dual Class - always start with 161k XP!
Yeah, Fanegonorom should give you the +2 Shield even though its only nice for Priests - there will be better ones later on if you take a little risk fighting Morentherene the Green Dragon or clear a whole Spider Cave and the Rhino Beetle. The Shield of the Fallen Stars from BG1 is still very good until Avernus!
But as you like going for risky moves (why would one battle Korlasz Guards if you can sneak by unseen) there will be a lot of fun going on soon. You runs - and the reading - are far more explosive than my minimal-risk-i-skip-everything stuff. Keep on blasting!
But as you like going for risky moves (why would one battle Korlasz Guards if you can sneak by unseen)
I did sneak through unseen and then tried to remove the Korlasz guards to make the fight easier - surely it's not my fault if the game cheats to prevent that .
Eklun started with the Main Quest Line rushing through to BG:
- Mulahey and Guards got destroyed by two doggies alone - Killed Tranzig by stunlocking him with two doggies - Used Invisibility to get in and out of Bandit Tent, Doggies and Nymphs killed Taurgosz and big parts of the camp - Killed Drasus with Doggies and Nymphs after charming him (nearly perfect stunlock with Doom!) - Davaeorn was killed by two Doggies after the charmed Guard lured the Battle Horrors away, he nearly got no chance casting his spells while the guards could not even touch the Doggies. No need for Necklace burning here!
The Doggie Master of Nature will move to Baldurs Gate soon. Very smooth run so far as most enemies are unable to touch his pets. Molkar and Lamalha went down in similar fashion with three Nymphs also joining the fun. Thanks to his pet shield Eklun has barely taken any scratch on his adventure so far.
Is there any way for Druids to open the chest with the Strength Tome below Candlekeep except for Violet Potion? DuHM isnt enough of i remember correctly. Are we missing something?
EDIT: Looks like that we are also not able to open the chest with the Tome of Wisdom as 21 Strength via DuHM is still too low. This means only two level five spells - instead of three. But how can Big B be beaten without Violet Potion? Harm is too much of a gamble on no-reload - is it not?
Is there any way for Druids to open the chest with the Strength Tome below Candlekeep except for Violet Potion? DuHM isnt enough of i remember correctly. Are we missing something?
There are mods that provide other usable strength-enhancing potions and mods that add clerical spells (such as righteous magic) to the druid. In the absence of mods though I'm not aware of any other option. You need strength 24 to break the lock and DUHM will only get you to 21.
I still don't see why Harm is so bad on no reload, a totemic gets two uses of it at level 12 and many more spell levels for the lower spells including magic resistance and true sight.
all you need is a 50% hitchance and ofc a little luck because of the 20 odd mr big B gets because of your spell.
I'd personally rather do a full new run than kite Big B around for hours.
@Victor_Creed_SFV: There's the problem. Harm would be great if a druid could get a 50% hit chance on Big B, but Big B has -12 AC. You need the Violent Potion to approach the -2 THAC0 necessary to land a hit with Harm with 50% accuracy (I calculate a maximum THAC0 of -1, considering the +4 THAC0 bonus from invisibility won't work on Big . Plus, even if you could get to a 50% hit chance, that's a 25% chance of flat-out failure by the time you run out of level 6 spells.
A 75% chance isn't bad, but normally, no-reload strategies aim for a success rate well above 90%. After all, you're gambling the fate of the entire run every time you enter combat.
A 75% chance isn't bad, but normally, no-reload strategies aim for a success rate well above 90%. After all, you're gambling the fate of the entire run every time you enter combat.
@semiticgod a 75% chance isn't bad for a one-off encounter, but is the chance of success in the above scenario not slightly less than that? 75% is the chance to successfully land a harm spell, but you then need to be able to damage him again in order to kill him. I don't think there's any guaranteed method for you to do damage to him, but is there any SoD equipment available that would make him damage himself if he hits you?
As any Strength Bonus does NOT apply to the hit chance of Harm you will need to roll a 20 against Big B´s -12 AC AND you will need to pass 40% MR AND you will have to hit him again for the kill. Thats not a 75% chance of success and even not 50%. Its below 5% (0,05x0,6=3% for getting in Harm only). I tested it also in practice with one of my old Berserker/Druids: Only after dozens of tries he managed to get in the full combo. Doing this in a no-reload setting is more than a gamble - its suicide!
P.S. There is the Suncatcher Shield that will work like a Fire Shield but too bad Big B is immune to fire. Dont forget: With summons and Caelar alive Big B did not attack me as long as the others were around in most of my tests!
P.P.S. You most probably wont get the time for a second Harm as the Demons and Big B will clear the summons (including Caelar) pretty quickly. Even with Iron Skin you will not survive for long to the incoming hits! With a quick retreat and some luck it might be possible but thats again nothing for a no-reload.
Harpagornis referred recently to the riches on offer in Baldur's Gate from killing NPCs - so I thought I would give that a try. I was surprised at the quality of goods on offer - Minsc for instance had Kiel's Helmet, so there's no need to go into Durlag's Tower in search of that.
With the additional funds Freda set out with the crusade and in the camp bought a bag of holding from Belegarm - that should solve the bulk of her inventory issues.
In addition to the information in this thread I've started reading Lilura's walkthrough of SoD in a desperate attempt to see if I can improve my chances of staying alive a bit longer . As I don't use healing potions, regeneration items are potentially particularly useful to me and the walkthrough pointed me to helping Tsolak in order to get the Trollblood Ioun Stone. A dispelling arrow for Ikros and wand paralysation for Isabella, along with some summons, did that encounter successfully.
Without any more PfU scrolls I thought the Dwarves of Dumathoin quest would be too difficult. Freda did do though the standing stones (a messenger delivering the Trollblood stone while she was fighting some spiders during that) and returned Takos his items. She also used summoned monsters to kill Valeria - though one of them destroyed a stone statue while confused, Herod didn't seem to mind that. The gold gathered wasn't quite enough to recharge her wand of fire, so she went invisibly into the mine and watched while the undead hordes killed the dwarves. None of the undead close by could see through invisibility so she went to collect the bard's treasure (leading the undead away a bit first to avoid getting trapped by them all congregating around her).
With shopping complete, she watched invisibly while Jayvis fired the bridge and then moved on to Troll Claw Woods.
There was nothing significant to do in Troll Claw Woods, but the Walkthrough referred to the possibility of getting a sling upgrade in a travel ambush. Freda spent a while trying to find that, but without success and just went on to the Forest of Wyrms.
Arriving in a dragon cave Freda was tempted to attack Morentherene by the existence of an 'Easter Egg' ability to one-shot her. Unfortunately it appears that you have to not only attack her, but actually hit her in combat to activate that (which I should really have expected) - Freda failed to hit, got scared and was eaten in a couple of seconds ...
That's odd. I thought all you had to do was hit her with a throwing dagger while she slept, and presumably the attack roll was automatic due to her being asleep.
Morentherene is quite strange in her behaviour. Sometimes you can run up, get Harm in and kill her right away. Sometimes she somehow gains 100 HP after Harm landed so you still have to work through the HP AND her Stoneskin. Sometimes she awakens - and goes hostile - when you are just getting in vision range (even invisibility doesnt help here!). She always wakens up immediately if you use any spell (or ability?) in the cave so i always make sure to buff myself up outside!!
Fredas death is a real pity @Grond0 - there were some very interesting battles ahead. Maybe next time!
Possibly the trigger to wake her only operates once per round - if so, depending on the timing you might sometimes be able to attack before she awakes. In my case she was awake and attacking me before I came into vision of her (although I'd deliberately avoided using any spells or abilities).
I'm not familiar with Morentherene but this sounds like something that wouldn't work with LoB it prevents most instakills.
@Harpagornis Oh ok thx for the clarification on the Harm hitchance, I keep forgetting that ST doesn't apply. Time to go all cheese and create an EE-Keeper Monk with harm.
Eklun is nearing the end of BG1 preparing for Sarevok and SoD!
Slyhe and Kristin: This one was really easy thanks to 5 Guards + 3 Nymphs + 2 Spirit Lions. The Nymphs casted Hold Monsters and rooted Kristin - great! With only Slythe following he went into Ekluns new party where True Sight dispelled his invisibility while Inscect Swarm ticked down his HP. The Lions proved to be very powerful as they have the highest DPS (and CC doesnt matter!) so Slythe did not last long before exploding into oblivion. Kristin - still paralyzed - followed him shortly after.
Cythandria: Eklun made sure to kill to invisible backstabbers first using Iron Skin + True Sight + Spirit Lions. He rested once more and confronted Cythandria - first luring away the two golems downstairs. After that he summoned two more Spirit Lions and three Nymphs while throwing in one Insect Swarm - too much for Cythandria who went down quickly.
Palace Ambush: After precharming the Mage (and moving him to a nearby room) with a rest in between Eklun charmed all guards and nobles while summoning two Spirit Lions. Buffed up he started the talking and immediately retreated a bit to cast the first Insect Swarm. With the DoT ticking he threw his Darts from safe distance while the guards and lions cleared the house pretty quickly. Even though Liia went down Belt was still at full health. Once the last noble transformed into a mage he casted Insect Swarm and summoned five Nymphs who healed everyone up again. It still took several minutes before the slippery Mage went down but thanks to the healing Belt and Eklun were never in danger. Sarevok raged a guard down but vanished shortly after - time to hunt him down once and for all.
Comments
The Nymph Cloak has multiple charges, but it's not available until you reach Baldur's Gate.
@Harpagornis: Why would invisibility potions be useful in the fight with Big B? He should be able to see through invisibility; one of his items gives him that ability. Is it just there to keep off the Abishais?
1. You will negate the -4 hit penalty from Improved Invisibilty (Arrows of Dispelling did not work!)
2. You will avoid the constant teleporting of the Demons - which will be VERY annoying later on
At the start i tend to use Sandthief Ring charges - its slower but the number of demons is not high enough to surround you. Later on - if you keep staying too long - they will teleport around you blocking any escape path. They will still scatter once invisibility procs but if you get unlucky and Big B is near you might suffer a lot of damage. And never forget: Cornugons can stun on hit. I died to this crap more than one time.
But you are right: Invisibilty will not protect you from Big B and also not from Erinyes Archers so i tend to use anti-missile equipment to minmize incoming damage. The numbers of Erinyes will differ in each battle: If you get lucky there will only be one of them - if everything turns out badly up to four of them will keep shooting. You might try to kill them but they are very slippery and will go invisible whenever you attack them. Bad girls!
Flooding the mine got Freda to reputation 20 and she did some shopping and picked up the tome from Durlag's before heading on to Baldur's Gate. Everything went pretty smoothly with encounters there - summoned monsters and charming from invisible being favorite tactics - except that Lothander teleported away just before being killed. She found yet another web scroll on a ghast in Ramazith's Tower - and failed once more to learn it, but after eventually succumbing to paying for a scroll from Sorcerous Sundries she learned it at the 6th or 7th attempt.
With funds being a bit short I did some encounters mainly for the loot, e.g. Sunin (summons) and Iron Throne (charm from invisible - the Shennaras losing out to Diyab and his skeleton warrior). It was a bit of a pain dealing with inventory management, but eventually the job was done.
A potion of magic blocking ensured Freda survived the welcoming committee back at Candlekeep. She left the Iron Throne leaders alone, but looted the tombs. The strength tome is particularly welcome as dualling to a fighter doesn't give you exceptional strength. After bypassing the dopplegangers she tried charming one of Prat's gang, but failed and was jumped on by several phase spiders - being poisoned there required her to use a green scroll as resting wasn't an option. She took advantage of that to kill the other spiders before trying charms again. Six or seven of those all failed and as resting is difficult there she just gave up at that point and left.
When walking through the woods there are always some kind of "bandits" ambushing us. The heavy armored Warriors are not the problem - even not the spellcaster. But the Archer is! He fires a volley of four Ice Arrows before we can get out of range - GG!
Well at least that should happen! No? You already may have noticed that we described the cutscene with Gorion and Sarevok - at least parts of it. Holy cow, how can a level 1 character survive four consecutive hits like this without any scratch? Hidden Stone Skin and Protection from Elements?
Anyway: The game should have ended here. Sarevok has won! Or was it Irenicus? Or Melissan? Who knows!
Has this one ever been explained by the developers @Ardanis or @JuliusBorisov?
At the palace there were more charmed and summoned creatures to start the fight. That nearly ended badly at the start though when the assassin targeted Freda with a backstab. However, at only 70 HPs that was quite low damage and after that Freda was pretty successful at staying out of the sights of the mage while dispelling the dopplegangers and topping up summons. Liia stayed invisible throughout so Freda wasn't called upon to renew that.
After spending the remainder of her funds Freda worked through the maze with the help of some summons against the skeleton warriors. Unfortunately Rahvin proved resistant to numerous charm attempts and Freda eventually gave up on getting his exploding arrows.
In the temple, Sarevok was dumped in the corner with the others while Freda dealt with Angelo herself (to avoid the danger of summons being confused or scared) using potions of magic protection.
Semaj died with the last blast from Freda's first Necklace and Tazok and Diarmid went down to the second. It took a number of shots (with a non-proficient bow), but Sarevok was finally dispelled and it didn't take too many more charges of the monster wand to finish him off then.
By the way in relation to surplus XP transferring, here's Freda's record at the start of SoD.
What are the odds of actually getting through the dungeon this time
PS I kinda agree it may look funny for a level 1 character to take several magic arrows in cutscene and die to a single shot in actual game... But then LoB itself isn't quite the normal mode per DnD rules.
Dazbog the Beastmaster reached the 7th level after visiting Mutamin's Garden (killing Algernon dropped reputation to 7, that was enough to retain the Ranger status). On Mutamin Dazbog found the Manual of Bodily Health.
A charmed basilisk helped to deal with Kirian's band of adventurers from Waterdeep, while the pseudo dragon familiar's regeneration ability turned to be especially useful.
Dazbog hasn't found anything good other than the Constitution tome, so right now he will attempt to raid the Sword Coast for items (bows, staves, studded armor).
Eklun in the meanwhile is rolling like a thunder through the Sword Coast:
- Killed Shoal and did some minor quests in Beregost to reach level 4
- Grabbed Algernons Cloak and gold heavy stuff like Drizzts Items and Ring of Wizardry
- Bought 24 Scrolls of "Stone to Flesh" and charmed Talanthyr for Invisibility
- Got luck to charm the solo Lesser Basilisk out if invisibility on first try
- Protected Eklun with PfP and started the "Experification" on the southern Greater Basilisk
- Ten minutes later Eklun reached level 10 (fleshing his pet once!)
- Killed Dushai outside of the village for Ring of Free Action
- Ued some gold to get back to reputation 10 and did all relevant quest to reach 20
- Killed Meilum for Gauntlets of Weapon Mastery (stunlocked!)
- Killed Neira for Eyes of Truth Helm (stunlocked!)
- Killed the thievish Ogre for anti-missile belt (stunlocked!)
- Bought Displacer Cloak, Greenstone Amulet and Sandthief Ring in Ulghoth´s Beard
- Grabbed also the Ring of Fire Protection and Ankheg Armor earlier
- Used Invisibility to get the Tome of Wisdom in Durlags Tower unnoticed
Thanks to XP pushing the level 10 Spirit Wolves are stunlocking everything (Doom!) while being untouchable for most enemies. With the most relevant items already aquired we will start the Main Quest Line soon! Time to get out with the real doggies!
Using another PfU scroll, Freda dragged them back to the level exit and there successfully charmed the mage before going upstairs. She went invisible again and came back down and ran back to the gate control room to see if the mercenaries would follow - which they did. Changing tactics, she started using wand scorchers to damage the mercenaries while running away. An absorb health from a blackguard hit her for 64 damage, but there wasn't much else and she used a potion of regeneration to fix that.
Once the enemies were mainly dead Freda lured the remaining few into the gate control room and summoned some monsters to help finish them off. That appeared to have gone well, but despite that fight being a long way from the nearest undead group they had apparently heard the commotion and come to investigate - and brought all their undead friends from further back in the dungeon as well. Her PfU was still operating when they arrived, but either she was dispelled or it ran out moments later as she came under attack - a quick potion of invisibility put most of the attackers off while she renewed the PfU.
Back in Corlasz' room, she saw that all the mercenaries except Korlasz were now hostile, so summoning some help to start a fight was not really an option any longer. She used a PfM scroll with the idea that she would buff up with potions, but as soon as she used that it triggered an assault from all the undead and mercenaries. She used a potion of invisibility to get out of the room and dodged the incoming undead hordes to try to drag them as far away as possible before using her last PfU scroll. Coming back to Korlasz' room most of the undead were gone, so Freda potioned up while the mercenaries grouped round her. A couple of scorchers along with a dispelling arrow to set her up for a scimitar attack was sufficient for Korlasz to surrender.
Just to add insult to injury when Freda reported back to Fanegonorom he said he was rewarding her with an item, but didn't actually do so (and I wanted that +2 shield).
Any clue why Freda started SoD with so many XP? My chars - except for Dual Class - always start with 161k XP!
Yeah, Fanegonorom should give you the +2 Shield even though its only nice for Priests - there will be better ones later on if you take a little risk fighting Morentherene the Green Dragon or clear a whole Spider Cave and the Rhino Beetle. The Shield of the Fallen Stars from BG1 is still very good until Avernus!
But as you like going for risky moves (why would one battle Korlasz Guards if you can sneak by unseen) there will be a lot of fun going on soon. You runs - and the reading - are far more explosive than my minimal-risk-i-skip-everything stuff. Keep on blasting!
- Mulahey and Guards got destroyed by two doggies alone
- Killed Tranzig by stunlocking him with two doggies
- Used Invisibility to get in and out of Bandit Tent, Doggies and Nymphs killed Taurgosz and big parts of the camp
- Killed Drasus with Doggies and Nymphs after charming him (nearly perfect stunlock with Doom!)
- Davaeorn was killed by two Doggies after the charmed Guard lured the Battle Horrors away, he nearly got no chance casting his spells while the guards could not even touch the Doggies. No need for Necklace burning here!
The Doggie Master of Nature will move to Baldurs Gate soon. Very smooth run so far as most enemies are unable to touch his pets. Molkar and Lamalha went down in similar fashion with three Nymphs also joining the fun. Thanks to his pet shield Eklun has barely taken any scratch on his adventure so far.
Droolit is back to the grind as well and finally left BG city, SoD awaits.
EDIT: Looks like that we are also not able to open the chest with the Tome of Wisdom as 21 Strength via DuHM is still too low. This means only two level five spells - instead of three. But how can Big B be beaten without Violet Potion? Harm is too much of a gamble on no-reload - is it not?
I still don't see why Harm is so bad on no reload, a totemic gets two uses of it at level 12 and many more spell levels for the lower spells including magic resistance and true sight.
all you need is a 50% hitchance and ofc a little luck because of the 20 odd mr big B gets because of your spell.
I'd personally rather do a full new run than kite Big B around for hours.
A 75% chance isn't bad, but normally, no-reload strategies aim for a success rate well above 90%. After all, you're gambling the fate of the entire run every time you enter combat.
P.S. There is the Suncatcher Shield that will work like a Fire Shield but too bad Big B is immune to fire. Dont forget: With summons and Caelar alive Big B did not attack me as long as the others were around in most of my tests!
P.P.S. You most probably wont get the time for a second Harm as the Demons and Big B will clear the summons (including Caelar) pretty quickly. Even with Iron Skin you will not survive for long to the incoming hits! With a quick retreat and some luck it might be possible but thats again nothing for a no-reload.
With the additional funds Freda set out with the crusade and in the camp bought a bag of holding from Belegarm - that should solve the bulk of her inventory issues.
In addition to the information in this thread I've started reading Lilura's walkthrough of SoD in a desperate attempt to see if I can improve my chances of staying alive a bit longer
Without any more PfU scrolls I thought the Dwarves of Dumathoin quest would be too difficult. Freda did do though the standing stones (a messenger delivering the Trollblood stone while she was fighting some spiders during that) and returned Takos his items. She also used summoned monsters to kill Valeria - though one of them destroyed a stone statue while confused, Herod didn't seem to mind that. The gold gathered wasn't quite enough to recharge her wand of fire, so she went invisibly into the mine and watched while the undead hordes killed the dwarves. None of the undead close by could see through invisibility so she went to collect the bard's treasure (leading the undead away a bit first to avoid getting trapped by them all congregating around her).
With shopping complete, she watched invisibly while Jayvis fired the bridge and then moved on to Troll Claw Woods.
Arriving in a dragon cave Freda was tempted to attack Morentherene by the existence of an 'Easter Egg' ability to one-shot her. Unfortunately it appears that you have to not only attack her, but actually hit her in combat to activate that (which I should really have expected) - Freda failed to hit, got scared and was eaten in a couple of seconds ...
Fredas death is a real pity @Grond0 - there were some very interesting battles ahead. Maybe next time!
@Harpagornis
Oh ok thx for the clarification on the Harm hitchance, I keep forgetting that ST doesn't apply.
Time to go all cheese and create an EE-Keeper Monk with harm.
Slyhe and Kristin:
This one was really easy thanks to 5 Guards + 3 Nymphs + 2 Spirit Lions. The Nymphs casted Hold Monsters and rooted Kristin - great! With only Slythe following he went into Ekluns new party where True Sight dispelled his invisibility while Inscect Swarm ticked down his HP. The Lions proved to be very powerful as they have the highest DPS (and CC doesnt matter!) so Slythe did not last long before exploding into oblivion. Kristin - still paralyzed - followed him shortly after.
Cythandria:
Eklun made sure to kill to invisible backstabbers first using Iron Skin + True Sight + Spirit Lions. He rested once more and confronted Cythandria - first luring away the two golems downstairs. After that he summoned two more Spirit Lions and three Nymphs while throwing in one Insect Swarm - too much for Cythandria who went down quickly.
Palace Ambush:
After precharming the Mage (and moving him to a nearby room) with a rest in between Eklun charmed all guards and nobles while summoning two Spirit Lions. Buffed up he started the talking and immediately retreated a bit to cast the first Insect Swarm. With the DoT ticking he threw his Darts from safe distance while the guards and lions cleared the house pretty quickly. Even though Liia went down Belt was still at full health. Once the last noble transformed into a mage he casted Insect Swarm and summoned five Nymphs who healed everyone up again. It still took several minutes before the slippery Mage went down but thanks to the healing Belt and Eklun were never in danger. Sarevok raged a guard down but vanished shortly after - time to hunt him down once and for all.
Spirit Summons > All
No?